Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-11-18
STEALING REGISTERED LETTERS.
How the Dishonest Postoff1ce Employees
Are Sometimes Caught.

How the Dishonest POstof1ce Employees
Are Sometimes Caught.
"There is one place in the postoffice ser
vice where stealing can be carried on with
little fear of detection said one of the
division superintendent recently, land
that is in the registered letter department
The opinion of almost every one is that
the safest way to send letter or package
is to register it. But there is a loophole
through which the mail can slip with
great ease. The weak part of the system
is in the receiving department Say that
a registered package is received at the
postoffice from some place out of the city.
1t passes to the clerks in the regular way
for distribution. If one of them is dis
honest he collars the package and, of
course, does not send the notice to the
person to whom it was directed. Not re-
ceiving any notice the owner does not call
at the office for the package, and the per-
son sending it, having perfect confidence
in the delivery system, believes it to have
been safely delivered. No complaints are
made to the office and there is no trouble.
All the thief has to do is to satisfy the
department which has a check upon him,
and this is done by forging the name of
the owner of the package to receipt and
''Is it easy for clerk to pick out let
ter containing money!
eyes. They will do it as certainly as
cat will scent fish head in an ash bar
rel. It's all done by the sense of touch.
A clerk must not be seen weighing up
letters, but must go through pile with
all possible speed. AS his fingers glide
quickly over the letters, if he has been
long at the business, he will know intui-
lively letter which contains anything
that makes an uneven fold within, as is
usually the case with money. 1t may not
be money, but if it feels like it; that is
enough, and the letter is dexterously
dropped on the floor or slipped into con-
venient place, where it can be picked up
without exciting suspicion
''How are the thieves usually detected?"
''By means of decoy letters. These let
tiers are fixed up in the inspectors office
Marked money is put into them. A bag
that comes to the office is opened and the
decoys are put in before the bag is sent to
the distributing department The bag
comes to the suspected clerk in the regu-
lar way. Search is made for the decoy
in the place where it should be if it had
been properly distributed If not found
the clerk is searched and if the right per-
son was suspected Une money Will be
found on him. 1t is hard to work decoy
on an expert thief. / know of one man
who passed thirty-five decoys before he
was caught. In fact he let them slip by
so regularly that he disarmed suspicion
and the decoys were tried on every other
clerk. Complaints were coming in all the
time and the case was puzzling.
''None of the clerks would touch de-
coy. Finally the first man suspected took
one and was arrested. He confessed, and
said that he could tell a decoy every time,
because it did not have the marks of
travel on it, and the stamping was smooth
and sharp, showing that a stamp rarely
used had been applied to the letter and
not the one regularly used in the course of
business.
''There is more or less stealing all the
time in the postoffice, but such close
watch is kept on the men that the amount
stolen is now comparatively small
Thieves crop out in the most unexpected
places, and men in good positions are
sometimes caught sacrificing their good
name, home and future for petty sums of
money. New York Evening Sun.